Riding the Tiger

Abstract

In studies of the loss of Indigenous languages, the common villain is the government or missionary school, an alien transplant that weakens local culture and moves rapidly to proclaim the greater worth of the conquering or colonial or national language. In my own studies, I have traced two such cases — the effect of schools on the shift from Māori to English in New Zealand (a phenomenon that started in the 1870s and achieved its goals over the next 90 years), and the shift from Navajo to English in the American Southwest (a process that started when mission and government schools were first opened in the nineteenth century, but the effect of which was delayed until compulsory education became widespread on the Navajo Nation after the Second World War). This volume asks a challenging question: Can the instrument of defeat be turned around into a method of defense? Can schools preserve rather than weaken the heritage languages of Indigenous peoples? Can those who wish to preserve their heritage language and culture ride the educational tiger that is working so hard to consume it?